Alan E. Hall was the founder and is chairman of MarketStar Corporation, a global outsourced marketing and sales company with a focus on assisting high technology companies increase sales through the small to medium business sectors. The company employs several thousand people and generates billions of dollars in sales for its clientele.MarketStar is now owned by Omnicom Group (OMC).

Mr. Hall is also the founder and chairman of Grow Utah Ventures, a not-for-profit entity with a mission of stimulating economic development through entrepreneurship.

Mr. Hall, an angel investor, has multiple investments in emerging Utah technology companies.With partner Greg Warnock, he recently established Mercato Partners, a growth equity venture capital firm.Its focus is to invest in high growth technology companies that need additional funding and expertise for marketing and sales.

This gentleman, a multi-millionaire, is as warm, genuine, and down to earth as you can get. No wonder he is so succesful. His presentation was very interesting, clear and filled with great, useful information. He talked about how important it is to first know what potential customers want, to know their demographics so you can identify the potential marketing area, and to then research and understand the competition of the potential product before any actual product/service decisions are made. This is SO important for budding entrepreneurs to know! Sometimes when these areas are thoroughly explored, the information gleaned helps entrepreneurs understand that what they thought might work really won't work. And knowing that is as important as anything!